Red Sox: What would it take to trade for Giancarlo Stanton?
By Sean Penney
It may not take the massive haul fans might expect for the Boston Red Sox to pry Giancarlo Stanton away from the Miami Marlins.
The headline story this weekend will undoubtedly be thew news that the Boston Red Sox have had preliminary discussions with the Miami Marlins about superstar slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
The interest from the Red Sox perspective is obvious. The team that finished last in the American League in home runs this year goes out and gets the guy who led the majors with 59 homers. It’s an obvious solution for the team’s most glaring weakness. Stanton and the Red Sox are a perfect match. Now the only question is how much it would take to acquire him from Miami.
Not as much as you might expect.
The Marlins are under a new ownership group intent on slashing payroll and rebuilding the team in their own image. The plan is unfeasible unless they manage to trade the contract clogging up a massive portion of their payroll. That would be Stanton’s mega-deal that owes him at least $285 million through 2027.
When the news broke that the Red Sox were talking to the Marlins about Stanton, some fans started to freak out about the massive haul they would need to give up to pry the four-time All-Star out of Miami. We desperately want Stanton but not if it’s going to cost a package highlighted by Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, plus whatever is left of the depleted farm system.
Relax, it won’t take nearly that much to trade for Stanton. Boston won’t need to surrender any of those top young talents, let alone all of them.
This is a salary dump for a Marlins team that knows they can’t afford to keep Stanton. The longer they hold on to him the less valuable he becomes, making it imperative that they move him this winter. As long as a team is willing to take on most, if not all, of Stanton’s remaining contract, Miami can’t possibly expect anywhere near an equal return in talent.